Award

The Young Biometrician Award of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society and the Fisher Memorial Trust

The British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society, jointly with the Fisher Memorial Trust, award a prize every two years for young biometricians (no more than 5 years since completing full-time education), who are members of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society. The award will recognise the research of one paper published, or accepted for publication, in a refereed journal. This award comprises a diploma and a prize of £1000. The rules are listed below and nominations for the 2019 award close on 31st January 2019. Nominations should be sent before this date to Rachel McCrea at email address R.S.McCrea@kent.ac.uk.

2017 Award

The 2017 Young Biometrician Award has been won by Anaïs Rouanet of the MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, for her paper “Joint latent class model for longitudinal data and interval-censored semi-competing events: application to dementia” (Biometrics 2016; 72: 1123-1135). The Region was delighted that Anaïs was able to join past winners speaking at our regional meeting on 28th November 2017.

The judges commented that “The paper addresses the important issue of cognitive decline and dementia in later life. It deals with longitudinal data, in which the onset of dementia is interval-censored. The paper is both technically impressive and well explained, and complete code is provided to make the methodology accessible to others.” The award includes a diploma and a prize of £1000 and will be presented at a BIR meeting on 28th November.

The panel also gave honourable mention to Emily Dennis of Butterfly Conservation & the University of Kent for her paper “A generalised abundance index for seasonal invertebrates” (Biometrics 2016; 72: 1305–1314), and to David Hughes of the University of Liverpool for his paper “Dynamic longitudinal discriminant analysis using multiple longitudinal markers of different types” (Statistical Methods in Medical Research 2016, epub).

The panel of three judges comprised Professors Rosemary Bailey (University of St Andrews, representing the FMT), Simon Thompson (University of Cambridge, representing the BIR) and Graham Hepworth (University of Melbourne, international judge). The judges commented: "We are pleased to note that there were many more nominations this year than previously. We should like to make clear that new, sound, interesting methodology for a genuine biometrical problem, presented and explained well, was our primary criterion for judging. We did not focus on longitudinal data; nor did we insist on accompanying software."

Young Biometrician Award Rules

The purpose of the award is to recognise and encourage good biometry by career-young biometricians. In this context, biometry is defined as the development of statistical and mathematical methods applicable to data analysis problems in the biological sciences.

The award will normally be open to competition every two years. In the event that it is not given in any normal award year, then it will be available the following year.

The award comprises a diploma and an amount of money, which will initially be set as £1000. In the case of a tie, the prize may be shared.

The award is open to students and biometricians who have worked for no more than 5 years (or full-time equivalent) since completing full-time education. For a PhD, the date of completion will be taken as the date of successful viva. Career breaks due to, for example, but not limited to, maternity, maternity support (paternity), adoption, shared parental leave or military service, do not count towards the 5 years. Please ensure that dates are clearly stated in the application. If in doubt, nominators should contact the Regional Secretary to confirm eligibility.

Applicants for the award must be members of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society at the closing date of the competition. Students must be registered at a UK or Irish University. Non-students must also be currently working in the UK or the Republic of Ireland or, if working overseas, be of British/Irish nationality.

The award will recognise the research of one paper published, or accepted for publication, in a refereed journal. There should normally be an application to biometry within the paper. In all cases only material written in English will be considered.

The work must be formally nominated; self-nominations are not permitted. Nominations should be submitted to the Regional Secretary by the advertised date, in each award year.

The nomination should consist of an electronic copy of the paper and any supplementary material, a statement by the nominator outlining the importance of the paper, and for co-authored papers there must also be a comprehensive statement of the nominee’s contribution to the paper written by the nominator or by a senior co-author of the paper. The nominator should also confirm that the nominee meets the eligibility criteria in rule 4.

The prize-winning piece of work will be selected by a panel of judges, appointed for that purpose by the Regional committee. The panel will include representation from both the Regional Committee and the Fisher Memorial Committee. Co-authors of submitted work will not be eligible as judges.

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